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| Original use of photo can be found here. |
The Warriors, a cult 70’s film turn video game, that just
happened to take up a chunk of my teenage years in both a digital form (video
game) as well as in its original film form. The game was great, and was
actually the first introduction that my nephew and I had to The Warrior World. After
many months of playing the game, my older nephews decided to get the film so we
could see the differences between the EA game and the cult classic. We were
astounded, the game actually stuck to the plot rather well, (apart from one
huge thing that happens at the beginning of the film, but it’s just like the
screen adaptation of A Street Car Named Desire, it was changed for the
audiences sanity… or something) and we loved both. Ever since then, I wanted to
see Cony Island, and the wonderful touristy surroundings of New York.
As you all may have guessed, I have been gone for a few months… Mostly because writing was just not fulfilling for a time, and also I just happened to be on a life changing trip to America to work with kids at a Summer Camp. Camp is over now, and I had a chance to get on over to NY with some fantastically, wonderful friends I made there! (Do you see where this review is going?) The usual questions came up: Where would you like to go? After several suggestions, guess what huge wheel popped into my head? You guessed it.
Reliving the film’s steps through Manhattan to Coney, and back, let me tell you, was amazing. Being the film fan girl that I am, I had a huge lady boner over thinking about that close up map that happens in both the opening intro’s to the film and game when going past all the stations they would have to pass through to get home after the traumatic gang meeting. Approaching Coney Island/ Stillwell Ave on the subway, being greeted by the smell and sight of the crashing waves and that big, bulbous wheel…. I felt all the adrenaline that the fighters gave off in their magnificent roles before each fight.
My own photo, good annit?
After re-watching the film, I noticed a lot of interesting
themes in the story. I never noticed how females were represented in the flick
(Oh Jessie, not a feminist rant over the female role, the gaze* and how women
were poorly represented in action films before the 80’s… Don’t worry readers, I
am not doing a Tumblr rant!). Take for instance the wonderful genre of
Blaxploitation, it showed in countless films the struggle of the Afro-caribbean
woman. In The Warriors, we can see the struggle of one racially different
woman, Mercy.
*Read more about the gaze, here.
Mercy is a very complex character to me, she is a strong independent lady, that is very fragile and dainty at the same time. This mishmash of ‘roles’ may be an indication of the uprising of Women’s independence and the big ‘up yours’ to those stuffy men who think that ladies should just be there to look sexy, but not actually do anything in a film role, and the obvious favouritism of a strong lady fucking shit up (like Ms Pam Grier did in most of her Blaxploitation roles of her carrier.) This aspect might just be to keep the cinema goers happy, since it was a radical movement to make a female role like this one of the main antagonist features. However, the dainty-ness of Mercy may express those stereotypical roles of those women who are in a minority in the uptown Manhattan area (the Bronx) and downtown Brooklyn areas, who usually was dominated by ‘the man’ and who didn’t have much to do apart from look after kids and be good to her man. Yuck. Either or, Mercy’s role really makes you think about suburban life for a minority, and how cinema represented these young, fighting ladies through film.
I also realised the cultural differences between all the gangs more than I did whilst watching the film in my younger years. The Warrior gang just by itself shows you all different cultures from white to black, Italian to mixed, how they all work together, even when they have different outlooks on life. It really shows you the multicultural-ness of NYC as a whole, which I really dig. All the gangs in The Warriors show this to some extent too, especially in the first scene where all cultures, body types, ideals E.T.C are displayed. Although this shows us the union of cultures the 60’s and 70’s brought along, I just thought that this early expression of cultural bonding was just wonderful, and adds a timeless mark on the film.
Even though this is classed as a sort of b-movie, I really think it deserves to be clumped along with the likes of Leprechaun in the Hood, it is an outstanding film demonstrating the urban life of young, men of all races, their relationship with their surroundings and each other, and the fight between starting at the bottom, wanting something better, and the struggles that comes with this. Even after about 10 years (god, I’m old) of knowing about the film and viewing it, I’m still in love with it. I am also so grateful that I was lucky enough to go on that big wheel, walk along that beach front, see those people and hear the sounds of Coney Island with a couple of the best people I know. Until we meet next time Coney, I will be fightin’ for ya.
Until next time,
Jessiefer.
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